Wednesday, January 30

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

I forgot to mention yesterday that I’ve been teaching the seminary students as well. The classes began Monday and Tuesday afternoons for two hours, and all day today. My subject, ‘Ministry in the Image of God. How the Trinity informs the way we work as pastors.’ It’s been a valuable time with these pastors.

We still don’t have our luggage. Yesterday was a roller coaster of a day in this regard. Around midday I made calls to the Air India baggage services in Chennai and they told me that the bags had been flow to Chennai on Monday. That was the good news. The bad news was that someone would have to go to Chennai (a 6-8 hour train or car ride) to retrieve them. However, the baggage services man told us that they haven’t officially been checked through customs in Chennai, so we would have to wait for final word from him that our bags are in fact in Chennai. We began our plans to send a couple people down today (Wednesday) to retrieve them. Since I’m teaching I couldn’t go down today, so someone would have to do so in my stead. We would have to get a legal document from the court here in Guntur, have it notarized and signed by me authorizing a person to retrieve our bags. Fortunately we have a lawyer with us on the trip, Aaron Shank, who was able to write up the document for us in proper legal jargon. After class yesterday, Bob, Aaron, Jakkia (BFLC pastor) and I went to the notary.

However, while the afternoon classes were in session, Aaron had called again to Chennai to confirm our bags had arrived. They had not. We would have to wait until today to find out for sure. It was a disappointment for Bob and me because it means we wouldn’t be getting our bags until the weekend. Tomorrow and Friday we’ll be visiting Nachugunta and the other island congregations and thus won’t be around to get our bags.

So, we prayed together that the obstacles in our way in this process would be removed. Literally, Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians 4 kept coming to mind, “We are perplexed but not in despair.”

After we prayed, some of the obstacles began to be removed. We found out who from the pastors would graciously head down to Chennai for us (that was a complete unknown before we prayed) and we found out how (by car. There was some debate about a train or car and we were simply stuck before we prayed).

The notary was another obstacle for us. We weren’t guaranteed that he would approve our document. Aaron left a blank about who would retrieve our bags for us…who would be our agent. At that point, we still didn’t know who that person would be, so we were honest…we just didn’t know. The notary was very hesitant to approve our documents, but did with reluctance. As he told us, if we were to lose this document and someone would find it, they could just fill their name in and steal our bags. It was as if he was notarizing a blank check. Thankfully, he approved.

Today, we face our last barrier, whether the bags are in Chennai at all. We’re trusting in God.
Bob conducted interviews with seminary students and Sudir, the pastor at Nachugunta yesterday. Aaron put his attorney skills to use for us, and Jim has been a great conversationalist with many of the pastors and others. Bruce Whitehead gave an interesting presentation about Israel yesterday morning about Israel. Eric and the rest of us toured the Moriah school to determine needs. The list is long. There are a number of physical needs to the classrooms that need addressed soon. Honestly, it was eye opening and depressing to encounter the need. The children make do with what they have, but their classroom spaces can improve dramatically with a bit of focused effort and money.

All for now. More later.

Thanks for reading

Pastor Mike